Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath is set to pump in Rs 100 crore into Bluestone, an omnichannel jewellery retailer, as competition heats up in the space. The investment comes as part of a funding round in which other notable participants include Zomato founder and chief executive Deepinder Goyal and CEO Amit Jain, and financial services firm IIFL, a report said.
Bluestone founder and CEO Gaurav Singh Kushwaha confirmed the development, saying the Bengaluru-based company was in the final stages of securing a funding round amounting to $65 million (around Rs 550 crore), valuing the company at around Rs 3,600 crore ($440 million), the Economic Times reported on September 23.
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Moneycontrol couldn’t verify the report independently.
Ranjan Pai, chairman of Manipal Group, and Info Edge Ventures are also involved in the funding round, contributing around Rs 100 crore each. Existing investors, too, are participating in this funding round, Kushwaha told the daily.
The latest round of financing for Bluestone comes after Tata Group’s Titan acquired the stake of Mithun Sacheti, the founder of CaratLane, a rival omnichannel retailer, valuing the company at approximately $2 billion.
Bluestone earlier raised $30 million from the family office of Sunil Kant Munjal of the Hero Group, which valued the company at $378 million, the report said. These developments highlight the competitive dynamics and investment activity within the omnichannel jewellery retail sector in India.
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“We will expand on what’s working for us — the omnichannel play. We have 175 stores and there is definitely space to have 500-600 stores eventually,” Kushwaha told the financial daily.
He added that there was significant traction across cities, from tier 1 to tier 3, emphasising the vast opportunities that lay ahead for the company. A substantial portion of the newly secured capital would be allocated towards expanding the omnichannel presence and investing in technology to seamlessly integrate and optimise operations.
Established in 2011, Bluestone is one of the early entrants in the vertical ecommerce sector but in the past 18 months, it has turned around its operations by laying emphasis on establishing an offline presence.
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